Last Modified: Saturday, February 2, 2013 at 10:30 p.m.

Each time, the state allowed those officers to return to work. A sheriff in the Florida Keys, for instance, hired an officer who lied on his homeowner's exemption to avoid thousands of dollars in taxes.

A Miami-Dade police commander resigned following allegations of assault and forgery and was hired in Sweetwater, a small department just four miles away.

And a Sarasota County deputy kept his badge after his bosses investigated him for sleeping with an escort and sent the proof to authorities. He resigned and the case was dropped by the state.

These cases are typical for Florida, where two powerful unions rewrote rules to make it harder to discipline problem officers, and where state lawmakers have ignored a system that allows police misconduct to go unchecked.

The Herald-Tribune reported on these failings in 2011, leading to calls for change in Tallahassee. But more than a year later, there's no push for reform.

Gov. Rick Scott removed two members of the influential Criminal Justice Standards and Training Commission and accepted the resignation of a third, but has yet to appoint replacements.

The 19-member commission has final say over who can be a police officer in Florida, but there are six vacancies and attendance at important meetings is low among those who remain.

And while a Senate committee held a brief meeting last year with Florida Department of Law Enforcement officials, there is no pressure to make changes.

The newspaper recently obtained new data from the FDLE to gauge how the system changed in 2012 and found:

• Fewer officers were “decertified” last year. Decertification is the final step for a problem officer and means he or she is no longer allowed to work in Florida law enforcement. The commission took this drastic step in 8 percent fewer cases than it had in 2011. Also, the number of times where the commission disagreed with its own staff and attorneys and sent someone back to work doubled from the prior year.

• The commission ignored staff recommendations and found no reason to discipline 50 officers who used a state driver's license system, DAVID, to snoop on colleagues. Commissioners rejected proposals to punish these officers and dismissed each case. The officers remain in active law enforcement.

• Sixty-two officers were rehired in 2012 after leaving another agency for misconduct. Police who reappear elsewhere after an investigation are known as “gypsy cops,” those who typically leave a large agency for a much smaller one. The Jennings Police Department, serving a town of 800 on the Georgia border, hired an officer last year who was investigated for bribery, and another for perjury.

“It sounds like the system needs to improve,” said Roger Goldman, a professor at the St. Louis University School of Law and one of country's leading experts on police misconduct. “But the No. 1 thing that needs straightening out is that commission — especially with all those vacancies. That's amazing to me.”

Sarasota County Deputy Bilford Bailey quit in March 2012 and turned in a resignation letter to the internal affairs detective about to interrogate him.

But his bosses continued their investigation into Bailey's actions during a seminar in Orlando and found evidence of misconduct.

On his department-issued cellphone, investigators found 153 visits to notorious prostitution site Backpage.com. The phone yielded pornography and records of calls Bailey made to women he met on the Internet.

The inquiry yielded an even better source: another deputy who accompanied Bailey to the December 2011 seminar paid for by the Sheriff's Office.

That deputy reported that Bailey texted a woman he met at Backpage.com. The deputy saw her enter Bailey's room and leave an hour later.

Just a few months before this episode, Bailey and other sheriff's deputies were disciplined for “conduct unbecoming” when they were rowdy and eventually got kicked out of Shephard's Beach Resort in Clearwater.

The Sheriff's Office sent the escort investigative file to the state's standards and training commission.

Sheriff's officials say that they did not pursue a criminal case against Bailey because the act happened in Orlando, outside their jurisdiction, and that they were unable to interview the escort with whom he met.

FDLE staff received the case in March and dismissed it in July.

The staff's role

These staffers work for a division of the FDLE that is the first and last stop for Florida police officers.

It oversees basic training for cadets and certifies them before they can work in law enforcement. During an officer's career, the commission tracks employment records and continued training in areas like marksmanship or forensics.

It also decides who can work as a police officer in Florida by reviewing, each year, more than 1,000 misconduct cases.

Typically, cases come from one of two sources: arrest reports or internal affairs investigations conducted by jails, sheriff's offices and city police departments.

The Herald-Tribune found this system to be dysfunctional, both in its initial stories published in 2011 and through its 2012 review.

The Herald-Tribune's investigation found that:

• Local police, county sheriffs and state prisons undermine the process by failing to report misconduct cases to the state.

• Repeat offenders, including one with as many as 40 internal affairs cases over 20 years, return to duty each year.

• The state ignores evidence of misdeeds and allows problem officers to continue their careers, even after acts that would send ordinary citizens to jail.

• Two powerful unions pushed for laws that allow an officer to see the evidence before he or she gives an official statement.

• The laws also allow an officer accused of misconduct to lie under oath and later reveal the truth without facing discipline.

In the Sarasota County case involving the deputy and the escort, the commission's staff stopped the case dead in its tracks. By not finding probable cause against Bailey, the full commission did not see the case and Bailey was allowed to remain a certified lawman.

Although he has not been rehired, many others find work each year, often taking a step down the career ladder to a small municipal department.

For these cities, hiring an officer with a complaint can be dicey.

Taxpayers can save money on expensive training with an officer who may have gained valuable experience during serious police events. But they also can be liable if that officer gets into trouble again.

In Jennings, the small Florida-Georgia border town in Hamilton County, there are two full-time officers and two reservists, both of whom came to the agency after discipline elsewhere.

Chief Faron Gantous knew about the bribery case against Shawn Raggins but said he was unaware that Samuel McDonald left a state prison job amid a perjury investigation in September 2011.

“They fully know that if, if you step out of line, you got to go,” Gantous said.

Defending their ranks

With the removal of the two members from the Criminal Justice Standards and Training Commission and the resignation of a third last year, the power of two police unions was dampened — but only slightly.

The chairman of the commission is Ernie George, a retired Palm Beach County lawman who once was the head of the Police Benevolent Association. He remains on the panel as a “Florida citizen” — the one spot that is supposed to be reserved for someone not working in law enforcement.

“I think the commission does a good job,” George said this week.

The unions worked behind the scenes and in public last year to defend their ranks.

Donna Watts, a Florida Highway Patrol trooper, stopped and arrested a Miami officer who was driving 120 mph on the Florida Turnpike in October 2011. One of the unions, the Fraternal Order of Police, complained to CBS4 in Miami that Watts was “completely unprofessional and very reckless.”

Eighty-eight officers from across Florida used the state driver's license system, DAVID, to seek Watts' photo and personal data — something prohibited by state law, Watts alleged in a federal lawsuit.

Watts also claims that some officers made threatening phone calls, parked in front of her home and played pranks like sending pizza deliveries to her door.

Some of those officers were investigated by their agencies and referred to the state commission. Records and interviews show that FDLE lawyers negotiated the case and recommended that each be punished based on how often they used DAVID.

The commission initially seemed ready to accept this deal but reversed course at later meetings and dismissed 50 cases outright. George, of the PBA, said there was some confusion about the officers' intent.

“Just checking DAVID is not necessarily something the commission is supposed to review,” George said. “In a lot of these cases, it was somebody using it out of curiosity.”

Each officer, including some of those cited in Watts' lawsuit, continues to work in law enforcement.

Little scrutiny

When the governor dismissed members of the commission last year, the shake-up was seen as the first step in a larger overhaul of the way Florida oversees 86,000 police, jailers and probation officers.

Little else has happened, though.

The governor could continue to alter the makeup of the commission through appointments, but a Scott spokesman said meaningful reform will require the involvement of lawmakers.

The power to fix the commission remains with legislators, particularly those in the Senate. There, lawmakers called a top-ranking FDLE official to a hearing after the Herald-Tribune's stories appeared in December 2011.

But the climate for change cooled quickly after an influential senator from Bradenton left the ranks of the Senate.

Mike Bennett, a former police officer who is now Manatee's supervisor of elections, proved the most dogged interrogator at the FDLE hearing. Bennett said he was particularly upset by disgraced officers stripped of their badges yet still collecting a pension.

The Herald-Tribune, for example, found a former Miami officer turned registered sex offender who receives $7,200 each month from the Florida retirement system.

“I thought we needed to do something about it,” Bennett said at the end of the 2011 session, his last term.

But now, police misconduct does not appear to be on the Senate's radar. A review of materials from the Senate Criminal Justice Committee shows decisions on everything from drones and juvenile justice programs to public records and child abuse laws.

“It's still early, though,” said Amanda Cannon, the committee's staff director. The committee typically sees a couple of thousand proposals each year. They are at about 300 thus far, she said.

Meanwhile, the commission continues to operate with little scrutiny. Last year, it refused to open a case against an officer who has been up for state review more than any other in Florida: Sgt. German Bosque of the Opa-Locka Police Department, a veteran in one of the state's poorest and most violent cities.

Internal affairs confirmed 40 misconduct cases against Bosque during 20 years on the job, from spitting on a teenager to gashing a man's face with a headbutt. He has been arrested three times and fired six, most recently in October after he was caught on camera running a red light and later failing to pay the fine.

Bosque was again before the commission last year — and even though he lost his job, the state let him keep his badge.

<p>Last year, Florida police cheated on exams, spied on colleagues, lied under oath and faced criminal charges of driving drunk, selling cocaine, stalking and child neglect.</p><p>Each time, the state allowed those officers to return to work. A sheriff in the Florida Keys, for instance, hired an officer who lied on his homeowner's exemption to avoid thousands of dollars in taxes.</p><p>A Miami-Dade police commander resigned following allegations of assault and forgery and was hired in Sweetwater, a small department just four miles away.</p><p>And a Sarasota County deputy kept his badge after his bosses investigated him for sleeping with an escort and sent the proof to authorities. He resigned and the case was dropped by the state.</p><p>These cases are typical for Florida, where two powerful unions rewrote rules to make it harder to discipline problem officers, and where state lawmakers have ignored a system that allows police misconduct to go unchecked.</p><p>The Herald-Tribune reported on these failings in 2011, leading to calls for change in Tallahassee. But more than a year later, there's no push for reform.</p><p>Gov. Rick Scott removed two members of the influential Criminal Justice Standards and Training Commission and accepted the resignation of a third, but has yet to appoint replacements.</p><p>The 19-member commission has final say over who can be a police officer in Florida, but there are six vacancies and attendance at important meetings is low among those who remain.</p><p>And while a Senate committee held a brief meeting last year with Florida Department of Law Enforcement officials, there is no pressure to make changes.</p><p>The newspaper recently obtained new data from the FDLE to gauge how the system changed in 2012 and found:</p><p>• Fewer officers were “decertified” last year. Decertification is the final step for a problem officer and means he or she is no longer allowed to work in Florida law enforcement. The commission took this drastic step in 8 percent fewer cases than it had in 2011. Also, the number of times where the commission disagreed with its own staff and attorneys and sent someone back to work doubled from the prior year.</p><p>• The commission ignored staff recommendations and found no reason to discipline 50 officers who used a state driver's license system, DAVID, to snoop on colleagues. Commissioners rejected proposals to punish these officers and dismissed each case. The officers remain in active law enforcement.</p><p>• Sixty-two officers were rehired in 2012 after leaving another agency for misconduct. Police who reappear elsewhere after an investigation are known as “gypsy cops,” those who typically leave a large agency for a much smaller one. The Jennings Police Department, serving a town of 800 on the Georgia border, hired an officer last year who was investigated for bribery, and another for perjury.</p><p>“It sounds like the system needs to improve,” said Roger Goldman, a professor at the St. Louis University School of Law and one of country's leading experts on police misconduct. “But the No. 1 thing that needs straightening out is that commission — especially with all those vacancies. That's amazing to me.”</p><p>Sarasota County Deputy Bilford Bailey quit in March 2012 and turned in a resignation letter to the internal affairs detective about to interrogate him.</p><p>But his bosses continued their investigation into Bailey's actions during a seminar in Orlando and found evidence of misconduct.</p><p>On his department-issued cellphone, investigators found 153 visits to notorious prostitution site Backpage.com. The phone yielded pornography and records of calls Bailey made to women he met on the Internet.</p><p>The inquiry yielded an even better source: another deputy who accompanied Bailey to the December 2011 seminar paid for by the Sheriff's Office. </p><p>That deputy reported that Bailey texted a woman he met at Backpage.com. The deputy saw her enter Bailey's room and leave an hour later.</p><p>Just a few months before this episode, Bailey and other sheriff's deputies were disciplined for “conduct unbecoming” when they were rowdy and eventually got kicked out of Shephard's Beach Resort in Clearwater.</p><p>The Sheriff's Office sent the escort investigative file to the state's standards and training commission.</p><p>Sheriff's officials say that they did not pursue a criminal case against Bailey because the act happened in Orlando, outside their jurisdiction, and that they were unable to interview the escort with whom he met.</p><p>FDLE staff received the case in March and dismissed it in July.</p><p><B>The staff's role</b></p><p>These staffers work for a division of the FDLE that is the first and last stop for Florida police officers.</p><p>It oversees basic training for cadets and certifies them before they can work in law enforcement. During an officer's career, the commission tracks employment records and continued training in areas like marksmanship or forensics.</p><p>It also decides who can work as a police officer in Florida by reviewing, each year, more than 1,000 misconduct cases.</p><p>Typically, cases come from one of two sources: arrest reports or internal affairs investigations conducted by jails, sheriff's offices and city police departments.</p><p>The Herald-Tribune found this system to be dysfunctional, both in its initial stories published in 2011 and through its 2012 review.</p><p>The Herald-Tribune's investigation found that:</p><p>• Local police, county sheriffs and state prisons undermine the process by failing to report misconduct cases to the state. </p><p>• Repeat offenders, including one with as many as 40 internal affairs cases over 20 years, return to duty each year.</p><p>• The state ignores evidence of misdeeds and allows problem officers to continue their careers, even after acts that would send ordinary citizens to jail.</p><p>• Two powerful unions pushed for laws that allow an officer to see the evidence before he or she gives an official statement.</p><p>• The laws also allow an officer accused of misconduct to lie under oath and later reveal the truth without facing discipline.</p><p>In the Sarasota County case involving the deputy and the escort, the commission's staff stopped the case dead in its tracks. By not finding probable cause against Bailey, the full commission did not see the case and Bailey was allowed to remain a certified lawman.</p><p>Although he has not been rehired, many others find work each year, often taking a step down the career ladder to a small municipal department.</p><p>For these cities, hiring an officer with a complaint can be dicey.</p><p>Taxpayers can save money on expensive training with an officer who may have gained valuable experience during serious police events. But they also can be liable if that officer gets into trouble again.</p><p>In Jennings, the small Florida-Georgia border town in Hamilton County, there are two full-time officers and two reservists, both of whom came to the agency after discipline elsewhere.</p><p>Chief Faron Gantous knew about the bribery case against Shawn Raggins but said he was unaware that Samuel McDonald left a state prison job amid a perjury investigation in September 2011.</p><p>“They fully know that if, if you step out of line, you got to go,” Gantous said.</p><p><B>Defending their ranks</b></p><p>With the removal of the two members from the Criminal Justice Standards and Training Commission and the resignation of a third last year, the power of two police unions was dampened — but only slightly.</p><p>The chairman of the commission is Ernie George, a retired Palm Beach County lawman who once was the head of the Police Benevolent Association. He remains on the panel as a “Florida citizen” — the one spot that is supposed to be reserved for someone not working in law enforcement.</p><p>“I think the commission does a good job,” George said this week.</p><p>The unions worked behind the scenes and in public last year to defend their ranks.</p><p>Donna Watts, a Florida Highway Patrol trooper, stopped and arrested a Miami officer who was driving 120 mph on the Florida Turnpike in October 2011. One of the unions, the Fraternal Order of Police, complained to CBS4 in Miami that Watts was “completely unprofessional and very reckless.”</p><p>Eighty-eight officers from across Florida used the state driver's license system, DAVID, to seek Watts' photo and personal data — something prohibited by state law, Watts alleged in a federal lawsuit.</p><p>Watts also claims that some officers made threatening phone calls, parked in front of her home and played pranks like sending pizza deliveries to her door.</p><p>Some of those officers were investigated by their agencies and referred to the state commission. Records and interviews show that FDLE lawyers negotiated the case and recommended that each be punished based on how often they used DAVID.</p><p>The commission initially seemed ready to accept this deal but reversed course at later meetings and dismissed 50 cases outright. George, of the PBA, said there was some confusion about the officers' intent.</p><p>“Just checking DAVID is not necessarily something the commission is supposed to review,” George said. “In a lot of these cases, it was somebody using it out of curiosity.”</p><p>Each officer, including some of those cited in Watts' lawsuit, continues to work in law enforcement.</p><p><B>Little scrutiny</b></p><p>When the governor dismissed members of the commission last year, the shake-up was seen as the first step in a larger overhaul of the way Florida oversees 86,000 police, jailers and probation officers.</p><p>Little else has happened, though.</p><p>The governor could continue to alter the makeup of the commission through appointments, but a Scott spokesman said meaningful reform will require the involvement of lawmakers.</p><p>The power to fix the commission remains with legislators, particularly those in the Senate. There, lawmakers called a top-ranking FDLE official to a hearing after the Herald-Tribune's stories appeared in December 2011.</p><p>But the climate for change cooled quickly after an influential senator from Bradenton left the ranks of the Senate. </p><p>Mike Bennett, a former police officer who is now Manatee's supervisor of elections, proved the most dogged interrogator at the FDLE hearing. Bennett said he was particularly upset by disgraced officers stripped of their badges yet still collecting a pension.</p><p>The Herald-Tribune, for example, found a former Miami officer turned registered sex offender who receives $7,200 each month from the Florida retirement system.</p><p>“I thought we needed to do something about it,” Bennett said at the end of the 2011 session, his last term.</p><p>But now, police misconduct does not appear to be on the Senate's radar. A review of materials from the Senate Criminal Justice Committee shows decisions on everything from drones and juvenile justice programs to public records and child abuse laws.</p><p>“It's still early, though,” said Amanda Cannon, the committee's staff director. The committee typically sees a couple of thousand proposals each year. They are at about 300 thus far, she said.</p><p>Meanwhile, the commission continues to operate with little scrutiny. Last year, it refused to open a case against an officer who has been up for state review more than any other in Florida: Sgt. German Bosque of the Opa-Locka Police Department, a veteran in one of the state's poorest and most violent cities.</p><p>Internal affairs confirmed 40 misconduct cases against Bosque during 20 years on the job, from spitting on a teenager to gashing a man's face with a headbutt. He has been arrested three times and fired six, most recently in October after he was caught on camera running a red light and later failing to pay the fine.</p><p>Bosque was again before the commission last year — and even though he lost his job, the state let him keep his badge.</p>